The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

by Jane Smiley
The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

by Jane Smiley

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Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley recaptures an almost forgotten part of the American story and once again demonstrates her extraordinary range and brilliance in The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
 
Set in the 1850s, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton speaks to us in a splendidly quirky voice—the strong, wry, no-nonsense voice of Lidie Harkness of Quincy, Illinois, a young woman of courage, good sense, and good heart. It carries us into an America so violently torn apart by the question of slavery that it makes our current political battlegrounds seem a peaceable kingdom.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Rousing . . . Action-packed . . . A gripping story about love, fortitude, and convictions that are worth fighting for.”Los Angeles Times

“Powerful . . . Smiley takes us back to Kansas in 1855, a place of rising passions and vast uncertainties. Narrated in the spirited, unsentimental voice of 20-year-old Lidie Newton, the novel is at once an ambitious examination of a turning point in history and the riveting story of one woman's journey into uncharted regions of place and self.”Chicago Tribune

“[A] grand tale of the moral and political upheavals igniting antebellum frontier life and a heroine so wonderfully fleshed and unforgettable you will think you are listening to her story instead of reading it. Smiley may have snared a Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres . . . but it is with Lydia (Lidie) Harkness Newton that she emphatically captures our hearts. . . . The key word in Smiley's title is Adventures, and Lydia's are crammed with breathless movement, danger, and tension; populated by terrifically entertaining characters and securely grounded in telling detail.”The Miami Herald

“Smiley brilliantly evokes mid-nineteenth century life. . . . Richly imagined and superbly written, Jane Smiley's new novel is an extraordinary accomplishment in an already distinguished career.”Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A sprawling epic . . . A garrulous, nights-by-the-hearth narrative not unlike those classics of the period it emulates. In following a rebellious young woman of 1855 into Kansas Territory and beyond, the novel is so persuasively authentic that it reads like a forgotten document from the days of Twain and Stowe.”The Boston Sunday Globe

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780449910832
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Publication date: 12/29/1998
Pages: 480
Product dimensions: 5.25(w) x 7.98(h) x 1.04(d)

About the Author

About The Author
Jane Smiley is the author of eight previous works of fiction, including The Age of Grief, The Greenlanders, Ordinary Love & Good Will, A Thousand Acres (which won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize), and Moo. She lives in northern California.

Hometown:

Northern California

Date of Birth:

September 26, 1949

Place of Birth:

Los Angeles, California

Education:

B.A. in English, Vassar College, 1971; M.A., Iowa University, 1975; M.F.A, 1976; Ph.D., 1978

Read an Excerpt

I Eavesdrop, and Hear Ill of Myself

Let every woman, then, bear in mind, that, just so long as her dress and position oppose any resistance to the motion of her chest, in just such proportion her blood is unpurified, and her vital organs are debilitated.
—Miss Catherine E. Beecher,        
A Treatise on Domestic Economy,        
for the Use of Young Ladies at Home,        p. 117


I have made up my mind to begin my account upon the first occasion when I truly knew where things stood with me, that is, that afternoon of the day my father, Arthur Harkness, was taken to the Quincy graveyard and buried between my mother, Cora Mary Harkness, and his first wife, Ella Harkness. My father's death was not unexpected, and perhaps not even unwelcome, for he was eighty-two years old and had for some years been lost in a second childhood.

I could easily sit beside the floor grate in my small former room above the front parlor of my father's house and hear what my sisters were saying below. The little bed I had slept in as a child was pushed back against the wall to make room for discarded sticks of furniture and some old cases. I sat on a rolled-up piece of carpet.

Ella Harkness's daughters numbered six. Of those, two had gone back to New York State with their husbands. Our three, Harriet, Alice, and Beatrice, were all considerably older than I, the only living child of the seven my mother had borne. Miriam, my favorite of the sisters, a schoolmistress in Ohio, had died, too, of a sudden fever just before Christmas. Some twenty years separated me from Harriet, and all the others were even older than she was. I had many nephews and nieces who were my own age or older and, it must be said (was often said), better tempered and better behaved. Some of my nephews and nieces had children of their own. I was what you might call an odd lot, not very salable and ready to be marked down.

"I don't want to be the first to say . . ." I could see Harriet from above. She squirmed in her seat and smoothed her black mourning dress for the hundredth time. She wore the same dress to every funeral, and the only way we'd gotten her into it this time was to lace her as tight as a sausage. The others let her be the first to say it. I leaned back, so my shadow wouldn't fall through the grating. "It don't repay what you feed her, since she don't do a lick of work."

"She an't been properly taught's the truth," said Beatrice, "but that's her misfortune." No doubt here she threw a look at Alice.

"I've had my own to worry about," complained Alice. Since Cora Mary's death, I'd been seven years with Alice. The easiest thing in the world for Alice was to lose things—her thimble, her flour dredger, her dog. If you wanted to stick by Alice, then it was up to you. She was a churchgoing woman, too, but whenever she forgot her prayers, she would say, "If the Lord wants me, he knows where to find me." That was Alice all over. Needless to say, I generally found myself elsewhere, and I would wager that was fine with her. Her own brood numbered six, mostly boys, so they were more often than not busy losing themselves, too. It was my niece Annie who kept the engine running at Alice's. Right then, in fact, Annie was out in the kitchen, getting our tea. It wouldn't have occurred to Harriet, Beatrice, or Alice to lift a finger to help her. It occurred to me, of course, but that hole of kitchen work was one I didn't care to fall into, because it was easy to see how those women would pull up the ladder, and there you'd be, hauling wood and water, making fires and tea, for the rest of your life.
"We could have sent her on the cars to Miriam. Young people her age seem to go on the cars without a speck of fear. Or Miriam could have come got her." This was Harriet.

They pondered my sister Miriam, a spinster who'd taught reading to little Negro children in Yellow Springs. Harriet's tone revealed some sense of injury that Miriam was no longer capable of being of use in this way. But Miriam had been a strict woman, the sweetest but the strictest of them all. Her fondness for me had been mostly the result of the distance between us and our lively correspondence. I knew that even if Miriam were still living and I had gone to her on the cars and tried to stay with her, the sweetness would bit by bit have gone out and the strictness bit by bit come in. But I missed her.
"Miriam was genuinely fond of her." Beatrice expressed this as a great marvel.

"Where is Lydia?" The sofa emitted a heavy groan. Harriet must have leaned forward and looked around for me.

"Outdoors," said Alice, and I would have been, too, but my heavy mourning dress, wool serge and buttoned to the throat, gave the sunny summer hillside that was my usual resort all the attractions of the Great Sahara Desert. I had crept upstairs and undressed down to my shift. The black armor I would soon need to don again seemed to hold my shape where it lay over the back of a chair. I lifted the hem of my shift and fanned myself with it. "Out in the barn, most likely." Alice amplified her speculation with all the assurance of someone who never knew what she was talking about.

"Oh, the poor orphaned child," exclaimed Beatrice, and for a moment I didn't realize she was speaking of me. "Alone in the world!"

"She's twenty years old, sister." Harriet's tone was decidedly cool. "I was safely married at twenty, I must say. If she's without suitors, who's to blame for that?"

"And she has us," said Alice.

Oh, the poor orphaned child, I thought.

It was true as they said that I was useless, that I had perversely cultivated uselessness over the years and had reached, as I then thought, a pitch of uselessness that was truly rare, or even unique, among the women of Quincy, Illinois. I could neither ply a needle nor play an instrument. I knew nothing of baking or cookery, could not be relied upon to wash the clothes on washing day nor lay a fire in the kitchen stove. My predilections ran in other directions, but they were useless, too. I could ride a horse astride, saddle or no saddle. I could walk for miles without tiring. I could swim and had swum the width of the river. I could bait a hook and catch a fish. I could write a good letter in a clear hand. I had been able to carry on a lively dispute with my sister Miriam, who'd been especially fond of a lively dispute.

Worse, I was plain. Worse than that, I had refused the three elderly widowers who had made me offers and expected that I would be happy to raise their packs of motherless children. Worst of all, I had refused them without any show of gratitude or regret. So, I freely concede, there was noth-ing to be done with me. My sisters were entirely correct and thoroughly justified in their concern for me. It was likely that I would end up on their hands forever, useless and ungrateful.

I stood up and moved away from the vent, suddenly weary of the certain outcome of their speculations. Back to Alice, back to the strange languor of that life. It vexed me, too, that though their afternoon of complaint and self-justification would result in nothing new, they would make their way through it, anyway, like cows following the same old meandering track through their all too familiar pasture and coming upon the same old over-grazed corner as if it were fresh and unexpected.

I looked out my window upon the slope in front of my father's house. There had been no funeral supper, none but the quietest and most subdued gathering of the few around town who'd known my father. Each of my sisters' husbands had returned to his business or farm directly from the graveyard. All of us, I knew, would find a way to put off our mourning clothes as soon as possible. Even before my father lost himself, he was a silent and vain man. Just the sort of man who would approach a plain woman like my mother without the least pretense or compunction and invite her to leave her own parents and come over to him, to care for his six daughters and bear him a son. He had been fine to look at, with glossy curling hair and full whiskers. Perhaps she was gratified at being chosen at last for the very usefulness she had cultivated so long.

My hair, as usual, was falling about my face. I unpinned it, set the pins in a row beside my small looking glass, and picked up my brush. My hair was long and thick. As I lifted it off my neck and pulled the brush up underneath it, I couldn't help feeling that in spite of every iota of evidence to the contrary, something was about to happen.

My sister Beatrice's husband, Mr. Horace Silk, sold dry goods on Maine, at Lorton and Silk. Mr. Jonas Silk, the old man and Horace's father, held the reins of the business in a tight grip. Lorton was long dead. As a result, Horace was as little consumed by his interest in calico and muslin as he was much consumed by his interest in western land. Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas—the walls of L and S Co. were papered with bills that offered, for a fair and reasonable sum, city lots in lovely, tree-shaded towns, country farms watered by sweet flowing streams, gristmills, sawmills, ironworks, every sort of business. Brother Horace and his cronies pored over the bills, comparing and contrasting the virtues of every region, every town, every named river and stream. They were forever putting together their investments, forever outlining schemes, forever scouring their relatives for funds, but in truth Mr. Jonas Silk was as niggardly as he was jealous, and my sister Beatrice had as much interest in Kansas as she did in the czar of all the Russias, and so my brother Mr. Horace Silk worked out his plans in a white heat of frustrated eagerness.

Of all the women, it was only I who listened to the men, though I made no show of doing so. The towns I favored numbered three: One was Salley Fork, Nebraska, where the grid of streets ran down a gentle southern slope to the sandy, oak-shaded banks of the cool, meandering Salley River and where the ladies' aid society had already received numerous subscriptions for the town library, which was to be built that very summer. Town the second was Morrison's Landing, Iowa, on the Missouri, where the soil was of such legendary fertility and so easy to plow that the farmers were already reaping untold wealth from their very first plantings. The third was Walnut Grove, Kansas, where the sawmill, the gristmill, and the largest dry goods emporium west of Independence, Missouri, were already in full operation. Horace himself had a fancy for a farm on the Marais des Cygnes River in Kansas, which was the finest farming land in the world and, according to the bill, located in the best, most healthful climate—just warm enough in the summer to ripen crops, always refreshed by a cool breeze, and never colder in the winter than a salubrious forty degrees. Fruit and nut trees of all varieties, bramble fruits, and even peaches were guaranteed to grow there.

For many months, one of my main pleasures in life had been to linger in L and S, prolonging my errands there for Alice and gazing upon the delightful bills, with their neat street maps and architectural drawings. Quincy, which had been a mere handful of buildings when my father arrived, seemed old and run-down by comparison. Even so, my chances of getting to any of these places seemed at least as remote as Horace Silk's, and as often as I gazed upon my favorite bills, I also vowed to put away the thoughts that agitated me. My sisters were as fixed in their various homes as stones, and as difficult to lift. I had no money of my own and no companion. Even my father's old horse had died some three years before, never to be replaced, since my father had no use for a horse. That horse was the last familiar creature that he remembered the name of. As recently as six months before his death, sister Beatrice found him in the barn, looking at the horse's empty stall and muttering, "Wellington." That was the horse's name, after the duke himself.

I turned from the glare of the window and crept back to the carpet roll. There I squatted and peered down. Harriet was fanning herself. Her face was bright red. Beatrice was saying, ". . . a nice chicken business."

"And where," said Alice, "would we set her up with this nice chicken business? And . . ." She paused and caught her breath indignantly. "If Horace is going to set anyone up in a nice chicken business, then in my opinion Annie is far more deserving and would certainly do well at it. Annie gets very little consideration, I must say. You have more room on your farm, Harriet, for any sort of nice chicken business than we have on our town lot, a double one though it may be and as big as any."
"I know the end of that," complained Harriet. "More work for me when she lets her chickens run wild. I have my own chickens, as many as I can handle."

I wanted to shout down through the grating that every woman in Quincy had a nice chicken business, that the chicken trade was over-subscribed, but I held my tongue.

"I still think," continued Harriet, "Beatrice . . ." There was a portentous pause while Harriet made sure to stake her claim to Beatrice's full attention. "Bonnets! She can trim bonnets for Horace and Jonas. She's all thumbs with a needle, but—"

"Lydia is all thumbs!"

"Annie, on the other hand, has a tremendous gift for trimming bonnets! She—"

I let out a single stifled bark of merriment. Harriet looked around, startled, but didn't guess where the noise was coming from. I have to say, though, that my sisters' ventures into the question of what was to become of me had taken an unexpectedly creative and comic turn. It was clear that I would have to make an effort, or I would soon find myself gainfully employed.

Below me I saw the top of Annie's head glide into view, neatly juxtaposed to a large round tray covered with tea things. The severe white parting that ran from the front of that crown to the back was so fine and straight it might have been done with a knife point.

"Shh," said Harriet. "Thank, you my dear. Lovely."

It was a principle of the family that no business was discussed in front of Annie, who was generally considered too innocent to withstand the shock of most topics, though of course not too fragile to be worked to death. They did not invite her to take tea with them, so she set down the things and once again removed herself.

"This whole question," said Alice, "is too much for such a day as this. We've just buried our dear pa, after all."

"He was a fine-looking man," said Harriet. "The very picture of a patriarch."

"Mrs. Rowan said he was the fairest creature of either sex she ever saw. She told me that yesterday when she was in buying sugar," said Beatrice. "'He cut a wonderful figure.' Those were her very words."

They all sighed.

Reading Group Guide

1. Jane Smiley's has lauded Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin for the artistry with which "the power of brilliant analysis" is "married to great wisdom of feeling." How does The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton measure up to this standard?

2. Why does Ms. Smiley choose to describe Lidie's adventures as "all-true" in the title of her novel? How would this work differ had the author chosen to turn her research into a narrative of nonfiction?

3. How does the novel authenticate as well as undermine myths about the North and the South in antebellum America? What traditional notions about frontier life, Westward expansion, and gender roles are confirmed or challenged?

4. After her husband's death, Lidie describes herself as a "new person," one she "never desired or expected to be." What is the relationship of her former self to her present self? What are the roles of chance, will, and ambition in the shaping of Lidie's life and character?

5. How does landscape function as a major character in the novel?

6. Of the Kansas Territory, Lidie writes, "you could easily act one way one minute and another way the next minute." What is the relationship between Lidie's character in the place she inhabits? How does the K.T.'s lack of definition make possible her discovery of self?

7. Lidie leads a life of adventure as well as a life of the mind. How do her physical endeavors compare to her contemplative pursuits—particularly storytelling—in terms of defining her character?

8. Ms. Smiley said that the novel was born of her desire to explore "the intersection of ideology and violence in American life." What connection does the novel suggest exists between these two extreme forms of expression?

9. In what ways do the sensibilities of the abolitionists mirror those of the slave-holders? How does each group use religion and history to justify its perspective on slavery?

10. How does the manner in which Lidie and Tom handle the vagaries and challenges of their relationship affect the progress of the social change they are attempting? What relationship exists between one's private life and public endeavours?

11. What purpose is served by introducing each chapter with an excerpt from Catherine Beecher's A Treatise on Domestic Economy, for the Use of Young Ladies at Home?

12. Experience and reflection help Lidie to move from ignorance and innocence to some sort of understanding of herself and others, yet confusion and ambivalence persist. What is the value of leaving the reader in the company of a conflicted character?

13. Smiley has said that the purpose of great literature is "to help us face up to our responsibilities instead of enabling us to avoid them once again by lighting out for the territory." Does her novel fulfill this purpose? How?

14. What connection lies between gender and violence? What is the significance of Lidie pursuing revenge disguised as a man?

15. What can the reader of Lidie Newton discern about morality and violence? Are the K.T. Free Staters justified in pursuing freedom through violence? What are the antecedents and repercussions of this issue in America?

16. Lidie Newton provides a novel perspective on antebellum America. What other historical events need telling from a woman's point of view?

17. Conjecture about the course of Lidie's adventures had Thomas not died. What are the repercussions of his presence and absence in her days?

18. How do the characters Papa and Helen Day contribute to the moral complexity of the novel? What is the significance of such complexity? Does the character of Lorna deepen or diminish it?

19. In an essay on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jane Smiley reproached Mark Twain for presenting a facile standard of heroism in his novel. She wrote: "All you have to do to be a hero is acknowledge that your poor sidekick is human; you don't actually have to act in the interests of his humanity." Does Lidie successfully act in the interest of Lorna's humanity?

20. "A writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature," wrote John Steinbeck. What can one say about Ms. Smiley's perspective on such perfectibility given this novel? Does her work leave one with a sense of optimism? What is the novel's defining tone?

21. When presented with the opportunity to share the story of her experiences with Lorna, Lidie hesitates. "I was disinclined to do this, and I pondered my disinclination at length," she explains. "Did I owe it to Lorna to tell her story to the world?...Mr. Thayer's friend candidly admitted one thing—Lorna herself would never benefit from my telling her story." What is the value of Lidie telling Lorna's story? Of Ms. Smiley telling Lidie's? What can literature accomplish?

Interviews

On Monday, April 27th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Jane Smiley to discuss THE ALL-TRUE TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF LIDIE NEWTON.


Moderator: Welcome, Ms. Smiley! We're glad you could join us here tonight in the barnesandnoble.com Live Event Auditorium. Is this your first online chat?

Jane Smiley: Yes. Thank you.


Rochelle Keller from Ann Arbor, MI: Hello! I was wondering if you would respond to the comparison of LIDIE to Mark Twain's novels?

Jane Smiley: Well, Lidie has two parents. One is HUCKLEBERRY FINN, the other is UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. Lidie is an older person than Huck, she's a woman, and she becomes consciously abolitionist, which Huck never does. So she has some characteristics of Huck, and some of Uncle Tom's -- she's adventurous and domestic at the same time.


Rick from Fordham University: Do you think Lidie's experience was typical of that of a 19th-century woman in the West? I think she is truly an inspirational character, even for today, but she seems so unlikely!

Jane Smiley: Her experience is atypical because she is not a typical ideal female of the time. She's tall and plain, unlikely to marry, and because of that, the sense she gets of herself as an oddball is atypical. But the fact that she is forced to become self-reliant and of losing things like her husband and money, that would be typical of the time and place. Many of the primary sources discuss how difficult life turned out to be in Kansas -- many of them died there. So, in who she is she's maybe atypical, in what happens to her she's typical -- and in how she manages to survive, she's more typical than we think.


Ellen from Portland, OR: You have written so many wonderful novels. I am a great admirer of your work. Do you have a favorite among them?

Jane Smiley: Well, actually I have two or maybe three. The favorite is always the one I'm working on at the moment. Other than that they are THE GREEENLANDERS and MOO. THE GREENLANDERS, because I was obsessed with the material for years and felt that the characters were talking to me. It was extremely emotional to write that novel. And MOO because it was really fun to write. I laughed at all the jokes -- it was probably my favorite writing experience -- so I liked it very much.


Lynn from Delaware: How would you describe your writing method? Do you usually do an outline before you begin writing? Do you ever do character sketches?

Jane Smiley: Well, I never do character sketches, but I also never say never, because each novel presents a different set of problems, and so the way I go about solving each set of problems is different. Usually though I write my way into a novel and then I pause and try to get organized. All of my novels have taken a great deal of research, so I write, and then do some research, then write again. It varies with each novel.


Sarah from Pittsburgh, PA: I really admire your ability to put out a novel every year or two. Do you keep a strict writing schedule? Do you prefer to work in the morning or night? Do you have a special place that you write? Thanks for the new addition to your acclaimed library!

Jane Smiley: I write in a little office next to my bedroom, and I generally write in the morning, but I don't have to. I'm not very strict about my schedule, though I try to do it every day for a couple of hours.


Katharine Greene from Washington, DC: Hi Jane, it's great to talk to you tonight! I'm a big fan. I'm just wondering what you think of the Oprah Book Club and her effect on the reading public? How do you rate her choices?

Jane Smiley: Actually, I don't watch television. The only thing I know about it I hear from Oprah. Probably every author wants to be chosen because it means a lot of book sales. Other than that, I don't have an opinion because I'm not familiar with what she's doing or how or why.


Matthew Burns from Washington, DC: I read your book MOO and really enjoyed it. I hope to read your new book soon. My question is this. What inspires you to write? Did you have any early literary inspirations or role models?

Jane Smiley: Yes, I had a role model in my mother, who was a newspaperwoman while I was growing up. Like other writers, I also read many series like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. I also read a few books in school. One, THE WEB OF LIFE, I remember very clearly; another was GIANTS IN THE EARTH, and also DAVID COPPERFIELD. They were the first real books I read, and I read them each in a day or two and really enjoyed them. The two novels were quite long, had many characters -- they probably shaped my taste -- those are the kinds of novels I still like.


Linda from Martha's Vineyard: Who are some of your favorite authors? What are you currently reading?

Jane Smiley: Well, my favorite dead authors are Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Hallder Laxness, Virginia Woolf. My favorite living authors are Alice Munro, Jamaica Kincaid, Garrison Keillor, Russell Banks, David Lodge. Some others that I can't think of right now. I'm currently doing research for my new novel, so I'm not interested in anything anyone else is writing.


Pauline Sams from Williamsburg, VA: You mention that you did a lot of research for your new novel on the 19th century. I am curious about what special challenges you discovered in writing historical fiction. Can you describe some of those? Also, do you think that you will write another novel of this type again?

Jane Smiley: In response to the second part of the question Yes, I'm not sure when, though. As far as problems in research go, most historical novels involve an interpretation of the historical period, and in the time when it was written your interpretation seems true and natural, but later your interpretation can seem dated. So that's a problem. Also, do you mimic the style of the time, or do you write in a more objective, clean style? That's a question every author answers for her/himself. But every answer is a compromise -- that's a hard question.


Susan from Oklahoma: Your book A THOUSAND ACRES is remarkable. The characters are so real that I found myself thinking about them six months after I'd finished the book. Lidie promises to be another such personality. Have you been writing all your life, or did you have another "life" before that as an author?

Jane Smiley: Well, I had the life of a teenager, but I started writing when I was about 20, so I didn't have an adult life before I started writing.


Greta from San Diego, CA: What is your next project?

Jane Smiley: Well, as a matter of fact, I'm researching a new novel -- it's about horse racing. There's a wonderful track in San Diego called Del Mar, where you might see me one day -- you should come up and say hi!


Lacey Miller from Richmond, VA: What did you think of the film adaptation of A THOUSAND ACRES? I just rented it on video and found it entertaining -- but was disappointed that it lacked the depth and passion of your novel. I especially felt like the rift between the two sisters (stemming from their jealousy over the affair) was not really explored or developed. In the novel, the older sister is so angry she has murderous thoughts. What did you think?

Jane Smiley: I agree. But what I would say is, a movie always presents different challenges than a novel, and I don't know how to second-guess the moviemakers, because I'm a novelist. But even though I recognize that the movie doesn't have the texture that the novel has, I don't know how I would have done it differently.


Mary Ellen from Larchmont, NY: Hi, I'm excited to at last have an adventurous girl character to offer my 14-year-old daughter! Are there any other historical/fictional titles you know of that are based on girls?!

Jane Smiley: Yes, there's a set of books about medieval Norway called KRISTIN LAVRANSDATTER, and the first volume is newly republished -- those are very good, by Sigrid Undset. I'm not prepared for that question, but it's a good one for a reference library. Maybe any Charles Dickens novel, one of them is BLEAK HOUSE. A good reader might get something out of that. She might be ready for the Brontes' VILLETTE and WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Those are the ones I read when I was a teenager.


Linda from Austin, TX: You have an admirer in Texas! I am wondering whether you read reviews of your books? Also, was it particularly daunting to win the Pulitzer Prize for A THOUSAND ACRES? Did it make it easier or harder to write the next book?

Jane Smiley: I do read some of the reviews, not all. I used to read them all, but not so much anymore. The Pulitzer was not daunting because I'd already started the new book. The other thing is that I'd already written a lot of books before I won the Pulitzer, so my relationship with my work was already established.


Megan from New York City: I read in The New York Times today an interview with author Russell Banks. It is interesting that both Banks and you have come out with historical novels simultaneously. He explains his shift as follows: "What happens among older writers is they don't expand their experiences of the world, and so their writing becomes thin." He didn't want this to happen, so he broadened. Do you agree with this rationalization? Did you have a similar impetus?

Jane Smiley: I think his rationale is interesting, but it's not what happened to me. First of all, I don't consider myself an older writer. Second, I've written lots of different kinds of novels, so I have a pattern of different writing. I guess I'll say I'll wait until I'm an older writer to see what will happen.


Melanie from Pittsford, NY: Do you think that your writing style has changed or evolved in any way over the years? Do you see a certain new direction it is taking?

Jane Smiley: Well, the answer to that fits in with the previous question. Since I've written so many kinds of novels, my style is in service to the kind of novel I'm writing. If I'm writing a comic novel, I write in a comic style. I think I've gotten better over the years, and I think that writing has become second nature to me, but I don't think I'm equipped to answer the question of whether my writing style has evolved -- that's a question for a critic.


Joe Wolf from Washington, DC: Do you see any of your other books being made into movies? I think your new book might adapt well to the screen.

Jane Smiley: LIDIE has already been bought by CBS for a miniseries, so yes, I think it will adapt well. I'm glad it will get four hours rather than two as a miniseries. I'm very enthusiastic about that.


Luke from San Diego, CA: You mention that you are researching a new book. When can we expect to see this in stores? I can't wait. Hurry!

Jane Smiley: I hope in about two years.


Moderator: Thanks for so thoughtfully responding to all of our inquiries here tonight! Best of luck on the rest of your tour, and good night!

Jane Smiley: Thank you very much


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